We got to Jaipur, the largest City in Rajastan, about lunch time and checked into the "Jai Mahal Palace Hotel". Now, we're talkn! Pretty nice and we stay for 3 nights of exploring. We were pretty tired, but rallied up after lunch for a bit of a city tour, ending up at Birla Hindu Temple at sunset, just in time for evening prayers. This is an all marble building with three types of architecture representing the three major religions in India. It was quite beautiful. It was crowded inside, but we stayed, as the faithful prayed and the priests tossed the holy water on all of us. Checking shoes at these places is kind of a "cluster f_ _ _, if you get my drift. The inevitable happened as one of our group put on some other mans shoes and was about to walk. We noticed a guy frantically looking for HIS shoes, and figured it all out. Eeeewwww. Stinky feet.
We got back to the hotel and the UW hosted a bit of a cocktail party for us poor wretched travelers.My bed was spinning that night!
We got up early am to get to the Amber Fort before the crowds. Thank goodness, as the day got,pretty warm and it got crowded. We also went to Jantar Mantar, a collection of astronomical instruments built aboutn1734 without slide rules or sophisticated instruments, and still accurate today. Since Horoscopes play such a huge part in Hindu match making, we were given a short lesson by an actual reader of horoscopes. It was very interesting.
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